Swimming, and Fireworks!

Short and sweet update today! Forgot to take many pictures, which means I may have forgotten some of the stuff we did :)

Last Friday was our first trip to the Natatorium this year. It was an overcast day in the 70s, but Nico didn't get too cold. We purchased a summer pass for both myself and Nico. We took Evelyn with us. This was my view. I could get used to this.

On Saturday, Jeff and Allicia and the kids left for a trip, they will come back this following weekend. That night we watched Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse while we ate pizza downstairs, Guy's choice. It is an animated film that won an Oscar for best animated film. It was very good. I say that about all the movies, eh?

Tuesday was a Grandma Camp. Tuesday night Nico had a Cub Scouts meeting, talking more about rocks. On Wednesday I took Nico to Roaring Springs, which is a water park with lots of slides and pools. He had received a free ticket to Roaring Springs from school for reading, and it expired the 4th. Instead of going on July 4th, though, we opted for July 3rd. A lot of other people had the same idea. There were many there that were using up their free pass from school reading that expired on the 4th. I just bought a "Spectator" pass, and I sat and read a book while Nico ran around having fun. He said he wanted to stay there all day, but after getting wet and experiencing the wind, he froze up after about an hour and asked to go home. He was very sad that it wasn't as fun as he was expecting. We bought some Dippin' Dots ice cream on the way out. That made it worth it!

We "flipped the suite" this week. Since Jeff & Allicia are out of town and they had a guest arriving today, they paid us to clean the suite for the guests. We all worked together over several days to get it done. It's quite a task!

This morning we all slept in! It was great. We finished up cleaning the suite and spent a lazy morning around the house. Nico has started playing Zelda and it's been fun to watch him downstairs. This afternoon Guy and Nico went to Grandma and Papa's house for a July 4th BBQ. I have been sick this week with a cold and was not feeling well enough to go, but they had FUN! Uncle David was there also with Rory and Bruce. Nico has a swimsuit that he keeps at their house, so he's aways prepared for water fights.

This evening we did fireworks! Guy picked some up on his way home from work yesterday. We are very close to the border of "no fireworks allowed" since we are so close to the foothills, but we are still allowed to do it! One street over and we wouldn't be able to.

That's it for this week!

Haircut, Kid's Jam, Grandma Camps

Last Friday Nico got a haircut! Here is the before picture.

And the after picture.

Nico's cabbage

We went for a walk Friday to return a bird book to a local book box. The one on our street wasn't there anymore, but I had spotted one on Bacon St, so we went for a walk. We passed by one of Nico's classmate's houses, Grace. Grace and Nico have both been in speech for a few years together. They are often in speech together. Nico says he loves her. He has been wanting to invite her to his birthday party, and when we passed by, her little brother opened the front door and yelled, "NICO!" so we chatted with him and Grace and their mom for a bit. We were able to invite them to his birthday party, so it worked out really well! We saw Grace's cabbage growing in their front yard, it looked very similar to Nico's

Saturday morning we went to the Kid's Jam at our church. Breakfast, games, and animals!

Human version of Hungry Hungry Hippo

Blurry Dance-a-thon picture (video at end of blog!)

 Corbin Maxey with his reptiles

Nico and the snake named Nico.

It was Nico's turn to choose the movie that night and he chose the Pokemon movie, the very first one. We were able to watch it downstairs since Jeff and Allicia and the family were out of town last weekend.

Sunday morning we found a package out front for Nico from Grandma Russell - an activity book about Geology, which he started into right away. He is learning about geology and rock in Cub Scouts this summer, so it's perfect! Thank you Grandma!

That afternoon we rode our bikes to the library.

They have their summer book program going on at the moment, and Nico was able to do a scavenger hunt there and get a coupon for a free cookie. 

Monday Nico and I went to the Discovery Center.

Tuesday was a Grandma Camp day - they had a picnic in the park and did some painting!

Wednesday night, Guy and I attended a seminar in Caldwell, and Nico stayed the night at Papa and Grandma's house. Grandma took him to his swimming lessons, and he "graduated" from his Level 3 program and got all the checkmarks! To celebrate, Grandma took him to the mall for some dinner, and some See's Candy. He played Sequence with Papa that night and then slept on the AIR MATTRESS! He has been wanting to do that his whole life - sleep on their air mattress at their house.

Thank you Ma and Pa for watching the buddy for us!

Thursday was another Grandma Camp day and it was Crock Pot time again! Nico brought home these amazing crock pot chicken thighs that he had made. I forgot to take a picture of all of them in the crock pot, these are just the leftovers :)

I rate them a 5! So does Nico. Guy rates them a 4.

Now on to the video!

I had a lot of fun putting this one together.

Crock Pot Meals, Rubik's Cube, and Horseback Riding!

Last Friday was the 2nd Grandma Camp day - the day the kids learned how to use a crock pot! I dropped Nico off at 8AM and he came home at 5:30 PM with a crock pot full of pot roast, potatoes and carrots. It was magnificent! And Nico made it. Nico was also required to clean the crock pot afterward, which he did diligently.

We had to rate it on a scale from 1-5. Nico gave it a 4. I would give it a 4.5. It was really good.

Saturday morning, after making pancakes, I packed up the car and drove to the downtown market to do some henna for the morning. Around 1 PM Guy and Nico hopped on their bikes and took the greenbelt all the way downtown to come see me right as I was closing up around 1:30. I gave Nico a henna tattoo and then we packed up my stuff and they helped me get it up the escalator before they headed home. 

Saturday night it was my turn to choose the movie while we ate pizza, we rented How to Train Your Dragon 3 from Red Box. Good movie!

Sunday was Father's Day. We celebrated by taking naps in the afternoon :) Sunday evening Nico became very interested in figuring out how to solve his Rubik's cube, so he got out a pad of paper and watched a YouTube video on how to do it. He took notes.

On Monday we were taking care of Avery and Ivy while Allicia and Evelyn were out of town. We took them to their VBS that morning and then Nico and I ran over to Urban Air (trampoline park) to use up one of his free passes. Nico solved the Rubik's cube while in the car that morning! 

We picked up the kids from VBS and came home for lunch. Allicia and Evelyn arrived home soon after.

Avery and Nico sat on our couch and talked about Pokemon for a while. 

Tuesday was another Grandma Camp, for this one they got to ride horses! They went to a farm where they showed all the kids how to approach a horse and pet a horse and ride a horse. Each one had their own handler, so while they sat on the horse, the handler held the reigns and they went for a trail ride.

Tuesday has typically been mine and Guy's date day. While Nico was in school, we would meet for an hour in the afternoon at a coffee shop. So this Tuesday we were able to resume that, and we decided to hit up a new restaurant (to us) in downtown Boise called Lemon Tree. They are a specialty sandwich shop, an they offer gluten free bread.

Guy got the Massaman Curry Bohn Mi, I got the Turkey Boursin. We both got a side of tomato soup. The tomato soup was perfect and the sandwich was even better. I have a new favorite local place to get gluten free lunch! We decided we should take Nico there sometime. They had outdoor seating and upstairs seating, we chose a spot inside on the main floor near the front window.

After lunch we walked around downtown. Guy got a coffee from a local shop we'd never been in before. He said the latte was really good.

And for a treat for me we went to The Chocolat Bar and got a truffle. We also went into a specialty gift store. From the outside we saw that they had a Tardis inside (from the show Dr Who), so we decided to venture inside.

They had photo ops for other shows too, including Star Trek. We also saw Archie McPhee's rubber chickens for sale! On the upstairs level I found a fun painting of the movie The Princess Bride. That movie was the movie Guy and I watched RIGHT before he asked me to be his girlfriend. So I bought it with some birthday money. 

It was the best afternoon ever.

After horseback riding, Nico and the crew went to the mall and ate lunch with my Aunt Liz, who is in town this week.

In the afternoon they once again went to the Pokemon League at the library, bringing Evelyn with them, and then they hit Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner.

Nico is graduating from Level 3 swimming lessons. After his last week of Level 3 next week, we are going to skip the rest of the summer and start up with swimming lessons Level 4 after he goes back to school. We plan to get a pass to the pool this summer and since he knows how to mostly swim now he is wanting to swim all the time.

Grandma Camp today was another crock pot meal!! Nico brought home a steaming hot crock pot full of chicken stew. Nico rated it a 5, Guy rated it a 2 (Chicken soup is not his thing, but he said it was a good chicken soup on the chicken soup scale), I would rate it a 4! 

After dinner we all headed to the church for band practice. I am playing piano this Sunday in the band so I was there to practice with them. It went late and we got home with enough time for Nico to clean his crock pot before he fell into bed. Zzzzz. He fell asleep fast. 

See you next week!